


your sacred stars

by Larrant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dark, Light-Hearted, M/M, Slice of Life, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:25:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hux is a demon, and Ren is his summoner. And nothing is quite as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gemmingi](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gemmingi).



 

.

.

.

_there's a reckoning a-coming_

_and it burns beyond the grave_

 

* * *

 

When the smoke clears and the dust settles, he finds himself gazing into a cold face framed by shoulder length black hair. Black eyes. Black hair. Pale skin. Young.

Young should mean _inexperienced_ , but the circle is unflawed, perfect- there’s nothing wrong with it, not even the aesthetics. From the tang in the air, it must have been drawn in blood- utterly unnecessary as a medium because anything would have sufficed- even the mere thought itself, so long as it was properly envisioned by the mind- but humans were strange creatures, prone to habit and physical things, and besides; circles drawn in blood set the atmosphere much better than chalk.

Without having to examine anything in detail, he already knows that everything has been done perfectly- this man, whoever he is, is talented, if not experienced.

The human in question raises an eyebrow, looks at him without speaking. His face is expressionless- it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking, and until he’s outside the circle, he won’t be able to get into the human’s mind to find out.

He takes a moment to examine him, the human- _his_ human- the expressionless features and the profile that is mainly nose (no really, the man’s face is really just _nose_ ), and then takes another moment to look the room beyond it. It’s. Plain. Quite dull, really, and some of the ceiling is peeling. The only window is also hidden by a curtain. He’d been told awhile ago that humans had ‘amazing windows’ nowadays (“ _two layers, would you believe that!_ ”), but the curtain is blocking most of it so he’s perhaps a little bit disappointed in that respect.

His second thought after that is to think the still air is oddly _light_ on his monochrome-hued skin in a way it has not felt for a millennia, the dust soft on his tongue as he flicks out a tongue and tastes. He thinks, gaze flickering to a ray of light breaking through the tight blinds of the windows, he likes the atmosphere of Earth already.

Everything is also white, except for the table, and the chairs. And also the strange contraptions which he supposes changes with every turn of the century- everything has a minimalistic appeal, no flair or decorations or hand-carvings.

Well. Not exactly traditional as an approach to summoning, but he’s never been one for dark rooms lit by candles, usually complete with a dead bull lying on an altar in the middle, like he knows some of his brethren are impartial to.

That isn’t to say he particularly likes _this_ either. Still, he thinks with an inward frown, gaze returning to his new master, beggars can’t be choosers.

 

* * *

 

Kylo Ren smiles. It is brittle. When he speaks, it is clearly and low, strength behind every word. “Your name is Hux.”

Names have power, after all. Names _are_ power.

Hux, the demon thinks. His wings itch for movement, the bones creak and ache unnaturally, and across his lips, a smile forms. His eyes shimmer black and gold, glow with an pale sheen in the halflight.

“Very well.”

And before he even stops speaking, the seal takes effect.

He can feel it, as reality ripples, as the Earth accepts him onto its warm soil as one of its own.

Hux, he repeats again, in his head to himself, and marvels as it settles onto his skin with a familiarity that is bone deep, feather-light before sinking, sinking deeper and turning his blood red and his flesh human. He tastes it on his tongue, just to be sure, the syllable turning into a soft hiss on his lips. _Hux_.

It is not an unpleasant name by far.

 

* * *

 

A note on the deal made at his summoning: he is bound to Kylo’s intentions, with the condition that he must follow the man’s orders in return for his soul. It’s a deal meant for a low ranking demon- an incubi or succubi who would settle for whatever they could get- the demons made from men who would never have the power of the Lord.

Which is fine for him.

Of course, as with any deal made with a demon, it may be cancelled at any time- when it is, he can devour Kylo’s soul before returning. Standard fare, even if Hux suspects that something about it is off- Kylo doesn’t seem like the type to so easily let his soul go (as a matter of fact, he has suspicions as to that- but well, he doesn’t care about which or what soul he gets, so that’s fine).

(as a matter of fact, it is necessary for him to take Kylo’s soul before returning- it’s Kylo’s soul (probably) that’s now bound to his, that keeps him tied to this realm, and without taking it with him there’s no other way for him to return)

But usually demons accept a summoning because they want to see a bit of the human world- usually they stay for the entirety of their human’s lifespan- after all, avoiding Hell is something everybody likes to do- so probably Kylo doesn’t expect he’ll be returning any time soon.

In any case, if it becomes a problem- and Hux doubts that, then he can simply deal with it later.

 

* * *

 

A bundle of black is tossed at him, and he looks down at what is presumably a bundle of clothing. It’s rather distasteful. There’s a smell coming from it that is rather too reminiscent of the human’s scent. So. The human’s leftovers.

He sniffs, before with a ripple of the air around him he’s fully clothed instead- the bundle of clothing held in his arms untouched.

Kylo Ren blinks. There’s a silence, before the human mutters, “Convenient.”

 

* * *

 

His master, as he learns, is a sorcerer. A man gifted in the arcane, who uses a flick of his wrist to summon the beverage that humans call ‘coffee’ to his desk. It is by far the most interesting gimmick he has seen by far- the small seal that is inscribed on paper to the desk, activated by nothing more than energy. Quite inventive, he must say.

(he tries the man’s coffee once; he spends the next two minutes rinsing out his mouth in disgust and swearing to never try the human invention again)

(Kylo looks at him with an unreadable look in his eyes, and then makes a short sound that Hux only later realizes is laughter)

He appreciates how easy it is to pick up habits, here. The human world moves _fast_ , fast in a way Hux has never really known until now- Hell is not a slow place, not by any means, but there had been no definition, no _importance_ to time there that seemed to hold everything in place, not like there is here. Insurrections could happen in moments, but could be planned for decades upon centuries of scheming and deceit.

 

* * *

 

“You can shapeshift?” Kylo asks absentmindedly, after a day of peering at old texts Hux could explain to him in minutes. Not that he’s offered. He thinks he’ll let Kylo suffer a little more first.

Hux blinks.

“Darling,” he says, remembering the line from some TV flick, “I can be anything you want me to be.” Abruptly, his voice is that of a woman’s, low and sultry- it’s not cheating on his part, not really, he just picked up the voice and appearance from television, and he’s fairly sure it belongs to some kind of actress or celebrity. Inventing a new appearance from scratch is just _hard_.

Kylo looks at him, utterly unimpressed.

Hux sighs, and shifts back. Kylo Ren simply does not understand humour.

"That includes animals, by the way." He adds, as an afterthought.

 

* * *

 

When somebody tries to shoot Kylo, Hux crushes his head. Though not before he breaks the man’s fingers that hold the gun, cuts off his tongue and pokes through his eyeballs with a finger. The man’s screams are quite pleasant to listen to.

And he’s irritated, just a little, that small fry like this would try to kill _his_ master. Mostly he’s irritated that he needs to do all this work for Kylo instead of just sitting around drinking tea like a civilized person.

(but it is this man alone who binds him to this plane of existence, and he will not let anyone harm him)

 

* * *

 

“Time passes differently in that realm,” he tells Kylo, eyes flickering to the window and outside, where the sun is already setting, where pink has started to dust the horizon, “It’s relative, sometimes. There’s no exact exchange rate to speak of.”

“Or if there is,” he amends, thinking about stock exchanges and the needless complexities of the human world- really though, Hell would _love_ it if they started introducing something like that, “Presumably it’s like monetary exchange- it constantly changes, unpredictable.”

 

* * *

 

Kylo has a master, Hux finds out. He finds this out on the day Kylo takes him to visit.

“Hide yourself,” Kylo instructs him before they go- and Hux acquiesces though he does not fully understand at the time.

And well, a field-trip out into the wide world of human interaction and sunlight.

Except Snoke, as Hux realizes only seconds in, is not human at all.

He understands immediately why Kylo had told him to hide his presence, to pretend to be human in front of his master- from the darkness that emanates from Snoke, Hux knows that he would have been found out immediately if he had not shielded himself. When Snoke asks, Kylo answers and tells his master that Hux is his apprentice.

Hux keeps his eyes lowered and his tone respectful, and puts a devotion into his tone that is wholly genuine- this Snoke does not seem displeased at least, and nothing in that dark aura suggests he even suspects Hux for what he really is.

Afterwards he thinks on that, wonders on it- wonders why Kylo had taken him, and knows that it is because there was no better way to explain his intentions to Hux. So, he considers, the apprentice wishes to topple the master. It should be interesting to watch, even though he should have realized something like this was going on from the beginning- what other reason would Kylo have to summon him?

 

* * *

 

Coincidentally on their way back, Kylo finally takes him to that food place he’s been wanting to go to all along.

 _One doesn’t go to the human world without trying it_ , he’d been told, enough times that he had finally developed a terrible curiousity for it.

Kylo sits across from him, expression utterly blank: he looks like he wants to die. Hux could care less.

“So this is the… Happy Meal?” He asks, and to be honest, he can’t see why anyone would be excited for something that looks like carbon waste packaged in dead tree pulp- except that particular acquaintance of his had almost been screeching with delight when he produced a neon green plastic model from under his sleeve.

To be honest, poking at the soggy potato, he can’t see why it’s particularly ‘sinful’. He tries a bite. It’s not very unique- just quite soggy, and rather oily. He sidelines a glance at the man at the other table who is stuffing pieces of potato into his mouth six at a time. He takes a moment to consider it: perhaps that method of eating is needed to acquire the true authenticity of the experience.

“Are you done yet.” Kylo asks.

“No,” he replies, and just to spite the man, he stays there for the better part of an hour. By the end of it, he wouldn’t call himself a true convert, but he does start to appreciate the modern culture of humans in this century.

 

* * *

 

“You still have that toy?”

“I’m a demon, I’m meant to be able to appreciate the pinnacle of human capitalism.”

“...”

 

* * *

 

“Snoke is powerful,” Kylo tells him, barely days later, “He’s a sorcerer whose name can be found throughout history, starting from at least the seventeenth century- he might be immortal, nobody knows where he is from.”

“He’s not human,” Hux tells him without missing a beat, and Kylo looks up- startled at that. He did not know, apparently. The darkness that had hung about Snoke was like a disease, a sickness that smelled of rot and age. It stands to reason a human would not have been able to see it though, even one gifted in the arcane.

But there is a smile hovering about Kylo’s lips when he speaks next, “Well, your usefulness is already becoming apparent.”

 

* * *

 

Somehow, the more time passes, the less fond he grows of his master- or maybe just the man gets more and more on his nerves- rather too much. He doesn’t know what about Kylo is so irritating to him, but clearly _something_ is, and something about the man rubs him the wrong way.

It’s something not even he understands, not really, but he finds his mind is overly happy with giving him images about Kylo’s eyes, his hair, his face, and that’s pleasant by itself, except that immediately afterwards his mind decides to recreate for him the eternal superiority and _smugness_ of Ren’s expression, until he’s constantly sneering at Hux even when he’s not around.

Unfortunately, Hux just has to bear with it.

 

* * *

 

“Show me again,” Kylo tells him, overly dramatic- or maybe just deadpan, because he’s not even looking at Hux, “Your true form.”

A blink, and he almost lets his gaze drift in disappointment to the tea he’s certain will now grow cold before he can finish. Another session of study, he presumes, that will be filled by note-taking and standing far too still. But without a word, he acquiesces, closes his eyes and lets the visage of humanity fall from him, replaces it in precision with his monochrome skin and the disfigurement that follows it.

And it is disfigured- the rotted, misshapen juts of his face, the angles of it, the asymmetry- his form is ugly, there’s no way around that fact, and he can shift it however he likes, but the truth of it remains. His skin is gray, the colour of granite, of stone- the same colour as the hot brimstone lava flowed from in the pits of Hell.

So he blinks in surprise when Kylo touches a scarred hollow beneath his eye, traces it down to the sharp, ugly jut of his cheekbone- he almost shivers at the touch, for no discernable reason.

“You really are a beast,” Kylo murmurs, as if fascinated instead of repulsed.

“Technically,” Hux says, and lets his voice slip into a soft, inhuman hiss, “I’m what you humans would call an imp.”

Kylo laughs.

 

* * *

 

“Tell me about demons." Another day, another hour- and really, Kylo loves to do that, demand things from Hux he should already know, and Hux settles in the armchair, languid and slow, even slower to reply, just to irritate Kylo a little.

“What would you like to know?”

 

* * *

 

“Higher ranked demons- there are ranks?”

“Of course,” Hux sounds amused, “The hierarchy is quite fixed- the difference in power makes all the difference.”

“How much power?”

He shrugs, a loose and languid motion, “I’m not sure, I have never met a higher demon,” he admits, already suspecting what Kylo might say next, and adds. “Higher ranked demons, fallen ones, they’re on a… completely different level. Comparing normal demons to them, it would be like comparing it to dirt on your shoe.”

Kylo, it seems, has no interest in listening to Hux’s warnings about this. “I’ve read about summoning them- is it possible?”

As he had thought. For a moment Hux is amused- that would be just like Kylo, to try and summon a fallen angel. He takes another sip of the still warm coffee.

“I think they usually like staying in Hell. You have to accept the summoning to come to this world in the first place.”

Kylo looks a little more interested at that, “Accept the summoning?”

Hux pauses, tries to find a way to phrase it- as well as giving Kylo some much needed suspense. There’s not enough of it in his life, now that Hux has come along to protect him, “When you open a… space, through this realm and Hell, by making the circle and pouring your power into it, it’s like you’re pouring out your intentions as well. It’s like a call, a call with specific intentions that goes out to someone who might be listening out for it. In your case, I was, and I responded. Responding to the call is the first part, accepting the contract is only the second- the circle is a form of limbo when we’re in both realms and neither, so if we reject the contract we just go back like nothing ever happened.”

In truth, he doesn’t know how else to phrase what he had called a ‘call’- it was more like a pull that could be ignored, but that called out nonetheless to you if you were looking out for it.

He pauses before continuing, just to give Kylo more reason to desist with his dreams of summoning Lucifer himself. “That’s the only way for minor demons like us to come through. But higher demons can generally open portals by themselves to temporarily come into the human world. When you hear about cults summoning demons like Beelzebub, it’s usually just a sham.”

Kylo only looks thoughtful.

Clearly, Hux has completely failed on impressing Kylo of the importance of not trying anything stupid.

 

* * *

 

As he gets used to life as human, he also starts appreciating all the things that they can do, all of which Kylo also doesn’t seem to appreciate.

For example Kylo gets up at extremely early hours of the morning. Read, before the sun has risen. So at six in the morning, he’s already there with his mug of black liquid and laptop. He goes to sleep at perhaps 1 in the morning.

Hux, on the other hand, prefers to sleep longer, even if he doesn’t actually need to sleep. He feels, after all, that while he is human he should do his best to become one- that, and sleeping is really rather quite comfortable. There was little chance or desire to do it, back in Hell.

 

* * *

 

“Is this bread?” He asks, and looks critically at the thing Kylo has handed him. It’s a piece of processed meat and cheese sandwiched inside a crescent roll.

“Ham and cheese croissant,” Kylo tells him after he swallows his bite, and goes back to sitting at his desk. Despite knowing that Hux doesn’t need to eat, the man makes two portions of food anyway. He needs to get a girlfriend, like humans might say.

He looks at the thing, appreciating how oily it feels on his fingers, and appreciates even more the desire to drop it into a bin, and then takes a bite.

… It’s not bad.

 

* * *

 

One day, his master comes up to him and says, “Snoke is more powerful than you, yes?”

Hux has, unfortunately, been expecting that remark at some point.

Kylo continues without pause, “I want you to find a way to kill him.”

Hux has been expecting that remark at some point too.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says, because that’s a human expression he has learned recently that equates to ‘maybe I’ll do it or maybe I’ll just do half of it who knows’, “Don’t you want to know what Snoke is, before you even ask me to do that?”

Kylo’s expression doesn’t change, “What is he?”

Hux wonders how long he can let the suspense last, before Kylo threatens him with death and dismemberment.

“A lesser god,” he explains, “A deity for lack of a better word. A _man-made_ deity,” he watches with interest the unchanging expression on Kylo’s face, honing in on the minute shift of his brow, of his eyes. He memorizes it. “You humans are all so unpleasant, really.”

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most days, when Kylo is at work, doing things more important than staying in the apartment, Hux stays in the apartment, reading or listening to music. Sometimes he buys McDonalds and watches a movie.

 

 

 

“Snoke- he’s a deity?” Kylo asks, presses him for information, and his voice is bland but the greed is tangible, a thick thing, tangling and unspun in the air.

Hux finds he quite likes the sound of it.

“I don’t know,” Hux replies, unwrapping the plastic wrapper to a twinkie and popping it into his mouth whole, “A minor god. Probably european.”

“I’ve never heard of that. How?”

His gaze flickers to Kylo for a moment, a vague and unformed suspicion arising that the man might be interested for more than just innocent research. But it wasn’t his business either way. Things like that weren’t hugely important to demons.

“It’s possible he used to be human,” he tells Kylo, and wonders if he can eat _two_ twinkies at once. After a moment, he decides to try. “In that case he would have made a couple of sacrifices or had enough followers that he became _more_. Alternatively he could have been someone pieced together with souls into a dead body that was brought back to life. Either way, he was either human at some point, or he’s made up of them.”

It’s possible Snoke is a demon of some sort- but demons knew each other from nothing but a glance, and Hux had felt nothing of that when he briefly saw the _not-human_.

Kylo looks at him with a grimace, “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Sure,” he says, and the sound of it is muffled. He swallows, licks the cream from his lips.

 

* * *

 

“That was my last box of them.”

“We can visit the- what is it called again- the supermarket.”

“Supermarkets don’t have them. You have to get them imported from America.”

Hux frowns, put-out. “And I thought the world was globalized.”

 

* * *

 

One day, he sees another sign of life outside the window. Or rather, the prickling sensation at the back of his neck tells him he’s being watched, and his gaze snaps around only to stare at a blob of orange fur perched on a neighbouring wall.

The blob of orange stares back at him.

Is that… a cat?

The thing meows, licking its paw.

He definitely remembers them differently. Perhaps a different breed.

There’s a tuft of fur above its eyes that makes it look like it’s frowning. What’s the word for that again- there’s a word for what he wants to describe. Cute. That’s the one. The cat continues on staring though, hard enough that Hux starts suspecting maybe it _is_ related to that old lineage- it probably sees him for something more of what he is.

And of course, as bored demons do, he decides to shapeshift into a one of its fellow species, just to see what the other creature is going to do.

… Maybe predictably when it sees him morph into a mirroring orange blob, it screeches and falls off the wall.

He sighs. It comes out as more of a ‘mrreow’.

When Kylo comes back to the apartment, he doesn’t do anything except stare at the open kitchen cupboard and the several empty tins of tuna that litter the floor- all of which have been torn open by fumbling claws, and then he glares at the orange cat which is sitting in front of them.

 

* * *

 

Hux twists his shape back to that of a human after a moment, when the staring contest grows dull for him. “Shapeshifting affects my instincts when I’m in the body of an animal.” It might be a flimsy excuse, but at least it’s true. And damn, tuna is good.

“Put some clothes on,” Kylo mutters instead, and Hux blinks before remembering that the man is right. As he shifts reality by a little again so that he’s, well, wearing clothes, he notices that Kylo’s ears are slightly pink.

Well, how interesting.

 

* * *

 

“Have you ever seen Snoke in sunlight?” He asks Kylo, after mulling over the problem for a few days.

Kylo stares. Before he blinks, and understanding flashes in his eyes, “No.”

He adds burning Snoke to the list of Things To Do.

 

* * *

 

Most days, when Kylo is at work, doing things more important than staying in the apartment, Hux stays in the apartment, reading or listening to music. Sometimes he buys McDonalds and watches a movie.

Usually he just reads.

Hux reads everything- he searches up a list of world classics and goes through them one by one, from Eugene Onegin to the Red Chamber. It’s easy to obtain books: there’s a bookshop around the corner, and he goes there several days a week, uses Kylo’s money to buy second hand copies that are torn a little at the corners, some of them bound with thread.

He likes the feel of old books. There’s a comfortable sensation around them, worn down and with thicker paper than feels good to turn. It’s better than new books, with their sharp cut edges and clean lines- there’s no sense of… anything, with those. No softness, none of the warmth of someone else’s hands lingering.

After he finishes a round of Kafka, he starts thinking that maybe humans are more than demons or angels ever gave them credit for after all.

 

* * *

 

The first time Kylo gives him money, he only stares at it with mistrustful eyes. There’s a whole selection of them on the desk, from Kylo’s monetary crash course. Pentagonal ones, round ones, different sized and shaped and coloured in bronze and silver.

He’s used to mimicking money, spinning air between his fingertips and smiling at waitresses when they gave him his receipt. But _this_ , this is different. He can feel the power in it when he holds a penny between his thumb and forefinger, a value to these coins that rubs like blood against his fingers. Not power, not exactly.

“It’s filthy,” he remarks, and wonders if how it would taste if he licked it- the dark that spins around it smells bitter, metallic. It must be old, to have accumulated so much… filth.

Kylo snorts, “You tell me.”

He brushes the darkness off the coin- it clings, some of it, to the imperfections and creases in the metal, but most of it dissolves, a wisp of smoke that disappears into the translucency of the air.

Strange that- it must be so filthy- the air around him, the atmosphere. But everything is so clear, so very very clear as if there are no imperfections anywhere. Perhaps it is the light which it lifts everything up, makes everything clean.

He wonders if he sees this world this way only because he’s been in Hell so long.

 

* * *

 

“I want these 'Pop Tarts'.”

“Buy your own.”

 

* * *

 

He goes shopping once. There’s so much choice and he can’t even _choose_.

He picks cans off the shelves and ends up grabbing a packet of every sweet he sees on the shelves. He ends up with a trolley full of chocolate and candy, with some frozen fish thrown in and a couple of brioche rolls. Some canned oyster too, for some reason he doesn’t know.

In front of the television, he peels cheese out of its wrapper and eats it. After the first bite, he thinks he feels queasy. Of all things, how did humans manage to fuck up _cheese_?

Still, the candy is better. In fact, the candy is _much_ better.

 

* * *

 

Another day, another conversation. He’s not sure if Kylo just wants to make smalltalk, or if he genuinely wants to know these things.

“Hell, what’s it like.”

Or maybe he’s asking because he’s going to live there for the rest of his karmic cycle.

In any case, Hux is fairly certain Kylo means the physical sense of Hell rather than the metaphorical ‘hell, Tony licked the icing off all my donuts before putting them back in the fridge’.

“Lots of fire. Lots of screaming, most of the time.”

Kylo frowns, looking a little irritated that he hadn’t gotten a better answer, “What did you do there,” he asks instead, and Hux wonders if the sorcerer couldn’t just grab a bible, or a bible study book. Or join a bible study _group_. The man needs to get out more, his skin is always so white.

On the other hand, it _is_ a good question, because Hux has no idea either. He casts his mind to it, brings up the image of Hell in his mind- maybe abruptly, he can envision it with too much detail. Bad idea, the image in his head feels visceral, the suffocation and the heat that are suddenly prickling on his senses- still, it’s most certainly less than an echo of the real thing.

After a moment, he answers, and it’s less sarcastic than he would have really liked it to sound. “Suffer, I suppose. Hell was made for suffering.”

With a blink, he shakes it off- the sudden uncanny feeling that is settling on him- and peers at Kylo disdainfully, “If we’re not going into a Satanic study session here, mind if I start asking some questions too?”

Kylo’s expression hardens, and, a little warily, he begins, “What questions.”

He waves a hand, mostly having just phrased his words that way to see more of Kylo’s emotions appear on his face. Well didn’t the man have things to hide. “Nothing important. I want to know about this magic of yours. How did you obtain it?”

Kylo looks a little less suspicious. But clearly he catches something in Hux’s sentence, something that makes his expression smooth over, “I wasn’t aware magic was something you could obtain.”

Unspoken curiousity is present in his voice, and Kylo probably expects him to explain how humans without a reach to that particular energy source within them were able to use it anyway.

 

* * *

 

Alright so he should have expected this at some point, but.

It doesn’t come like he’d have expected it to.

“I want to fuck you,” Kylo says, as if it is any other statement or command he might give, like- ‘fetch me digestives from the cupboard’ or ‘hang the laundry’ (the latter not so much, especially not after that time with the custard), and Hux is thrown for the barest second before the meaning of it sinks through. Not that it’s hard to understand.

He’s surprised- for all of a moment. And then, irritated at the timing of it. He was rather looking forward to going to bed.

(there’s another emotion too, too quick for him to catch, and then it is gone before he can even consider what it was when it was there. maybe it’s disappointment- and he’d thought this dynamic they had was going well.)

Well, so his master had desires like these too. He had almost been beginning to doubt as the weeks ticked by, and the man still held himself to as high a standard as a priest. He had not seen him pleasure himself even once- and the man’s hold on his emotions was tight, enough he barely ever had the chance to glimpse even the surface of his thoughts.

It’s night, the sun has fallen and the moon has risen- its closing to midnight, and on second thought this is the perfect time for such desires to rise. Not really for him though. Still, he’ll try.

“Of course,” Hux demurs, and there is a twist to his lips, a smirk barely perceptible. He steps forward, closer to Kylo, and something in him shifts in a way that is not visible to any human eye- perhaps it is the manner of his walk, the way he holds his head, the unbuttoned collar of his shirt that reveals a sliver of pale pale skin that seems to glow in a manner it did not a moment before- perhaps it is all of these, but in an instant he is changed.

It’s been awhile since he’s had to use the seduction skills he’d acquired over the centuries. He’s fairly certain they haven’t deteriorated though. Fairly certain.

“Who do you wish me to be for you, _Master_?”

And suddenly the voice speaking to Kylo is not Hux’s at all but a boy’s quiet pitch, a woman’s seduction- a girl’s voice, a girl with bright eyes and brown hair and she is fierce and wild and beautiful- he knows her name, and if the sudden flicker in Kylo’s eyes at that one is anything to go by, Hux is going down the right track.

There’s a moment of smug satisfaction in him at the thought.

Except that there is no change in Kylo’s expression, and so with faint disappointment (had he gotten them all wrong? Surely not- it would be one of them, he had glimpsed enough thoughts in his Master’s mind to guess that), he lets the illusion slip away like water through uncupped hands. He rolls his eyes- another human expression he had adopted not long ago- deciding to let the seduction in him slip away after a moment. Maybe he should just wait for Kylo to tell him, that would probably work.

Kylo doesn’t say anything at all though, and in a step he has reached out a hand and pushed Hux to back up against the table- the abruptness of the motion is such that the demon almost hits his shin on the table leg- and Hux glares even though the bruise is going to form in heal in approximately ten seconds. He is almost tempted to make a snide comment about violence- unfortunately that’s cut off by Kylo’s voice interrupting him.

“You,” Kylo says, impatient and low, “I want _you_.”

And ah, well, this isn’t what normally happens.

 

* * *

 

So maybe about half of his moaning at the beginning is really quite loud and in general _just_ like in the gay porn videos he’d found online that one time- as a matter of fact, he’s quite proud of his vocal skills- that is until Kylo tells him, in no uncertain terms, to shut up.

He moans extra loud for a second, before the hard tug on his hair makes him shut up in disappointment.

 

* * *

 

Actually, his master isn’t all that bad at sex.

 

* * *

 

He says that and snips off his memory of the latter half of that night when Kylo has him begging for release and _Satan_ , where did Kylo find those enchantments for the things he does.

 

* * *

 

A footnote: Kylo Ren is really oddly affectionate, that is something Hux finds out when afterwards Kylo pulls him close and falls asleep just like that, holding him to his chest. And hell, the man’s bed is more comfortable than his own, so why not stay.

There’s an odd sensation in him, something that’s not quite comfortable in his chest, and he realizes, in a disconnected fashion, that the body pressing so close to his is quite terribly, terribly warm- and then he stops breathing for all of five seconds as he pushes the thought out of mind.

Somehow, sleep arrives quickly.

 

* * *

 

 _The fire_ **_burns_** _. He can feel it like he has never felt before- hot and heavy and suffocating and red like no red he has seen before- the heat is a living thing, choking, pushing him down to the lava spitting ground. It’s hot. Painful. Excruciatingly painful, in the manner where even the air hurts, scrapes his lungs. And he cannot bear it- the fire_ **_burns_ ** _in a way he has never comprehended, thought to comprehend before- he can feel himself burning with it._

_He looks down. He shouldn’t look down. He shouldn’t he shouldn’t- but he cannot help himself. He looks down at himself, and raises his hands, realizes with some distant, sick horror that they too are burning, that the skin is peeling off, melting away, revealing the sticky red flesh underneath- and even that is charring before his eyes, burning and turning black. When he looks up, there is only darkness and stone, a red that gleams from stone stalactites above._

_And then. Away from these horrors. Away from these distant, distant horrors, something else. Something else when he chances a glance at the distorted reflection the pool of poison offers him. Something as worse as all the other of these torments pieced together._

_It’s only then that his back arches, that his cracked and torn lips open into a scream._

His eyes open to a white ceiling.

There is no discrepancy to his heartbeat, it beats slow and measured, not a beat out of time.

He hasn’t had that dream for a long time now. He’s gotten used to bad dreams, even if it’s a little unexpected to have that dream of all things now. Even if…

He stops his slightly twitching fingers, ignores the phantom itch at his back, and sits up. Kylo is gone, and the lack of warmth beside him tells him that he’s been gone for at least half an hour. Probably hours.

The alarm clock shows 11:02 in the morning. That’s… early enough. He’d prefer later, but Kylo had told him one day, when he got up at 4 in the afternoon, that nobody in the human world got up at 4 in the afternoon.

With a sigh and a hand through his messy hair, he gets up to go to shower. It’s a habit now to shower in the mornings- hot showers are quite possibly one of the most original and useful inventions humans have ever come up with, and it’s only correct to start the day with one. When the blast of heated water hits his skin, he lets out a sigh of relief.

There’s another difference to Kylo. He never spends more than 5 minutes showering. Which is almost terrible- hot water is one of the supreme inventions of mankind. Human life is short enough, it needs to be enjoyed.

“You’re drinking that again,” he comments, looking at the half-full glass of coffee in Kylo’s hand. It smells nice. Even if he knows it tastes foul.

Kylo looks considering, for a moment. “Want to try?” He asks, and from the hint of a smirk on his lips, Hux knows that something is up- whatever it is, he’s not sure if he’d like to find out.

“No,” he replies promptly, nose wrinkling. It’s a facial expression he learned how to make a few weeks ago, and now he likes doing it every so often.

Kylo smirks, “I insist,” he says. And this time when he summons coffee, he doesn’t so much summon it as much as make it- apparently it’s necessary because he adds sugar and cream and rummages in the back of the cupboard for something that reads ‘Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate’, the same brand as the chocolate he kept on seeing in supermarkets.

In the end, Hux looks dubiously at the mug of coffee that is held in his hand. He’s already preparing himself for the foul taste. But Kylo looks insistent, like he’d said earlier. So he drinks it.

And finds when he sips it, it’s sweet, a hint of cocoa that slides down his throat with a pleasant warmth.

(it eases something in him, something that had lingered from that dream)

He takes another sip,  that it’s actually pleasant.

He won’t ever say that though.

 

* * *

 

run,

run as fast as you can

_if they catch you they’ll-_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


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